Where Are the Female Founders at Media Camp Demo Day?

Demo Day was full of cool ideas but had a shortage of women. Lack of awareness got the blame, so we’re getting the word out.

By Jessica Schimm (Assistant Editor, Women 2.0)

Last week, five media startups demoed their product at Media Camp’s Demo Day in San Francisco. The products ranged from a social media “DVR” to prevent spoiler alerts, to monetizing YouTube videos, to turning kids’ Saturday morning cartoons into interactive games.

The projects were impressive and created discussion about how media will continue to transform in the future. And while there were women in the audience, (including Jennifer Kay, Director of Marketing and Growth at Tru TV) it was disappointing to see that there were no women founders.

Media Camp Director, Sandy Khaund, said that while media camp does encourage females to apply, and hopes that more will, women just aren’t aware that it exists, and tend to apply to Springboard instead.

Considering that women make up half of the media consumer demographic, we hope to see more women founders involved in media camp in the future, which Kay believed will include a media landscape that is far more personalized in exciting ways we haven’t even conceived of yet. She added that things in her media ‘ecosystem’ will come to her in her stream as opposed to having to search for them.

How do we get more female founders in the media sphere?

Jessica Schimm (@JessicaSchimm) is the assistant editor at Women 2.0. She is a recent graduate of San Francisco State where she earned a B.A. in journalism and was the editor-in-chief of SF State’s Her Campus chapter. She has a strong interest in women’s issues and writes about them on her blog Women Who Run San Francisco.